John Coltrane, orchestrated
Terence Blanchard joins the BSO for an evening of symphonic exploration
The music of saxophonist, bandleader and composer John Coltrane (1926-1967) gains an orchestral reimagining in “Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra,” to be performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with trumpeter Terence Blanchard.
An evening-length journey through Coltrane’s life and music from the 1950s through the late 1960s, “Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra” was curated and arranged by Carlos Simon, the BSO’s first-ever composer chair and composer-in-residence at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Accompanying the music is a rare visual history of Coltrane. Photographs and footage selected by Simon from the Coltrane estate will be projected during the concert.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of John Coltrane as a musician and as a person,” said Simon, a 2023 Grammy nominee for his album “Requiem for the Enslaved,” which commemorates the 272 slaves sold in 1838 by Georgetown University, where he is an associate professor in the Department of Performing Arts. “As curator, I wanted to show not only the genius of Coltrane but also how his life evolved and influenced the music he wrote and performed. There’s no separation between the man and his music.”
Carlos Simon, composer chair, Boston Symphony Orchestra PHOTO: ROBERT TORRES
Growth and change were ceaseless in Coltrane’s music and life. “It can be easy for artists to become stuck into one lane if it’s really successful,” said Simon. “But I find curiosity in his music, the need to experiment. He went through many different phases with his music and each reflects where he was personally. ‘A Love Supreme,’ a deeply spiritual work, followed his transformation after defeating drug addiction.”
Fidelity to Coltrane’s music was a priority for Simon. “I wanted the arrangements to keep the integrity of his music. Listeners will recognize some of the licks and riffs in the original tunes, but played with different instruments. They’ll hear Coltrane’s music in new ways.”
“Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra” will be performed March 21 and 22 at Symphony Hall. This world-touring tribute will be conducted by Edwin Outwater, music director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, who also conducted its May 15, 2024, world premiere by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Joining the symphony orchestra will be a jazz trio. Boston’s trio features trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, a seven-time Grammy winner and two-time Oscar nominee.
Trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard PHOTO: CEDRIC ANGELES
“They do the improvisation that is core to Coltrane’s music,” said Simon. “They interweave back-and-forth with the orchestra, which is playing the melodies—including fast-moving passages that will sound like Coltrane’s music.”
The program presents selections from landmark Coltrane albums and ballads that include “Alabama” (1963), Coltrane’s response to the September, 15, 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four African American girls.
“John Coltrane has always been a huge inspiration,” Blanchard said by phone from New Orleans. “In the midst of everything going on in this country, his music was a clarion call for justice and a representation of the pain people were feeling. Back then he was performing aggressive, high-energy music such as ‘Giant Steps,’ but he slowed it all down with this brooding, beautiful ballad expressing the pain of losing these four little girls.”
Coltrane’s innovations can also inspire evolution in the classical canon, notes Blanchard, whose “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” (2021) was the first opera by a Black composer to be performed by the Metropolitan Opera. Blanchard is now composing his third opera while developing a new album with his band, E-Collective, and scoring an upcoming film by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who directed “Woman King” (2022).
Recalling that the Met rejected three operas by distinguished African American composer William Grant Still Jr. (1895-1978), whose music often drew from spirituals, Blanchard said, “The orchestra didn’t know the language from which his phrases and rhythms were created. But much of the music we now study in school and hear in symphonic settings is rooted in folk music, like the works of Stravinsky. And Aaron Copeland adopted harmonies and rhythms he heard in jazz.”
Blanchard welcomes the symphonic exploration of Coltrane’s compositions. “As a listener, I wouldn’t want to miss this. You never know where it may lead in effecting change in the symphonic world and expanding its canon. And for me, performing with an orchestra is always a beautiful experience and a blessing.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.